The present invention relates to the printing of blank forms. In particular, it relates to a method of coding the edge of a stack of form blanks.
Specialty printers are often faced with the task of rapidly processing large numbers of small volume orders of printed material. For instance, printers of checks and share drafts are normally required to print personalized data in lots of 500 or 1,000 blanks for each order. It is common to print a number of orders simultaneously on the same printing press. Since many orders are processed together, it is difficult to keep the orders separate so that each customer receives only his or her own personalized checks. For the purposes of this specification, checks and share drafts are embraced by the term check.
Personalized check documents are prepared by first printing standardized information and background patterns onto paper. The printed paper is cut into sheets which are commonly referred to as base stock. Typically, a sheet of base stock for checks is 15 inches by 18 inches and is printed with fifteen checks (i.e. fifteen blanks). Each blank contains the background and standardized information for a particular check.
Typically, each check has a long edge and a short edge with five check blanks being printed along the length of the base stock and three check blanks printed across the width. The base stock can be printed in a variety of colors, patterns, etc., and often has background designs printed on the front of each blank such as scenery, wild life, and the like.
In addition to the background patterns, check blanks often have border patterns, and a plurality of lines positioned parallel to the long direction of the check for inserting a date, the name of the payee, a dollar amount, the payor's signature, and other miscellaneous information. Because subsequent cutting steps are not normally very precise, it is common to offset the border patterns slightly toward the center of the blank such that portions of the border patterns are not accidentally cut off.
Each blank on the sheet of base stock may be scored with a cutter near the edge which will later be bound to provide for easy removal of each check blank from the checkbook. Checkbooks are most often bound along the top edge. The sheets of base stock containing the blanks and scoring are stacked and stored for further processing steps.
Custom check printers either print base stock or purchase base stock from suppliers. The custom check printer adds information to the base stock such as customer name, address, telephone number, drivers license number, bank name, bank address, and account numbers, for example. In order to process an order, the custom check printer arranges the printing plate on the printing press to simultaneously process several orders at once. For example, a printing plate may be set up to print fifteen separate orders onto each sheet of base stock, having fifteen check blanks per sheet.
Checkbooks normally have between about 20 and about 40 checks per book, with twenty-five sheets being most common. Therefore, in an order of 500 checks, the custom check printer prints 500 sheets of base stock, with information for one order on one position on the printing plate. The printer forms a stack, cuts the stack into smaller stacks of individual check blanks and binds the stacks into twenty separate books of twenty-five checks each. (Checkbooks also have a plurality of deposit slips in the rear of the book. Other checkbooks have duplicate blanks following each check blank.)
At this point, the custom check printer has fifteen separate stacks of orders of twenty books, or a total of 300 books for filling the fifteen orders. Before packaging the individual orders and shipping the orders back to the customer, it is necessary to verify that each book in the stack belongs to the same order.
Quality control inspectors examine one or more pages in each checkbook to verify that each book belongs to the same order. The inspector looks at the customer name and the account numbers printed in each book. This process is tedious and is subject to human error.
It would be desirable to develop a method of rapidly and accurately inspecting an order of checkbooks to verify that each book in an order bears the same personalized information.